Hungarian Classical Music Day

Being proud of the richness of Hungarian classical music, its old and new values, its great and its minor masters, its diversity and its inimitable traits, is anything other than some kind of narrow-minded nationalism. In fact, quite the opposite because our music, the works of our 19th, 20th and 21st century composers, are to be found in the universal medium of European culture and classical world music in general. This is the yardstick against which we measure the fruit of Hungarian music and where we position it: whether it is the works of Ferenc Erkel, who limited himself as culture hero to his homeland, or the works of the world-conquering Ferenc Liszt. The concert programme dedicated to the memory, and arranged on the exact anniversary of the birth of Zoltán Kocsis, arcs from works by the twin founders of the Liszt Academy all the way to the brand-new composition of the current head of the Composition Department, Gyula Fekete, in a programme featuring the orchestra once conducted by Kocsis, the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, and two highly talented young musicians, cellist Gergely Devich and conductor Gergely Madaras.